“This is one of my lazy days, and I’m going to carry it out. I’ll be blest if I’ll throw all that water out.”
He went to where the sea had flung up a vast quantity of kelp in the recent gale, and drew out from the heap the largest one he could find. Perhaps some boy, who has never been on the seashore, might say, “I wonder what kelp is.” It is an ocean plant that grows on the deep water rocks. The roots cling to the rock, and send up stalks from ten to fifteen feet in length, with a leaf or apron nearly as long as the stem, a foot wide in the middle, tapering towards each end, and of the color of amber. This stem, which is hollow, and filled with air, causes it to float on the surface of the water, where it is exposed to the sun, without which it could not grow. The hollow in a large stem is about half an inch in diameter. They come to the surface about half tide, and thus are exposed a few hours while the tide is ebbing and flowing.
Charlie cut the large leaf and the root from the kelp, when he had a limber hollow stem five or six feet long. Putting one end into the canoe, and the other into his mouth, he sucked the water through it; then putting the end down on the beach the water continued to run in a steady stream over the side of the canoe. He was contemplating his work with great satisfaction, when, hearing the sound of oars, he looked up, and saw John doubling the eastern point.
It was impossible for Mrs. Rhines to keep John from going to the island alone any longer, since Charles had been off alone, and he was much larger and stronger.
“What are you about, Charlie?”
“Making water run up hill.”
“But that is running down hill; the beach is lower than the canoe.”
“But it runs off over the side of the canoe; come and see.”
“So it does, sure enough. What makes it go up over that turn?”
“That’s just what I want to know,” said Charlie, “and I mean to know, too; but I suppose it’s the same thing that makes water come up hill in a squirt.”